


A For Effort

by amcw177



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Some Action, Too many tropes to list, bad attempts at matchmaking, questionable comedic timing, shiro didn't sign up for this, suddenly shiro angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7459464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amcw177/pseuds/amcw177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team thinks Lance and Keith need to get their act together. They decide to help speed things up, but heir attempts at matchmaking backfire spectacularly, which Shiro could've told them right from the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A For Effort

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few firsts:  
> First attempt at anything in this fandom. Hi! *waves* I'm sorry I happened to your fandom.  
> First thing I've written in over two years. If I seem a little rusty that's because I am. Again, very sorry.
> 
> **A note on gender:** Shiro refers to Pidge as she/her in this. If this bugs you in any way this might not be the story for you.
> 
> **Canon divergence warning:** Rover is alive and beeping in this. You can't name something _Rover_ and then kill it. That's just not how the universe works.
> 
> This turned out hugely tropey, but I thought it was a fun idea so I hope it's enjoyable.
> 
> Many many thanks to the lovely [Lys ap Adin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lysapadin/profile) who took it upon herself to proofread this. *smooches*

Shiro had it on pretty good authority that he was a capable pilot. People of higher rank had told him so repeatedly. Also, he had a plaque in his room on Earth (assuming it was still there, both his room _and_ Earth) that attested to his utmost proficiency at his job. He’d been educated in military strategy, some basic engineering, conflict resolution, and leadership skills. What they had neglected to teach him was how to handle a bunch of man-shaped toddlers.

“You bit me!” Lance yelled.

“You hit me with a toaster!” Keith screamed at the top of his lungs.

“It’s not a toaster, you numbskulls!” Pidge butted in, raising the noise level another few decibel. “It’s an electromagnetic neuron-collector and it’s highly sensitive.”

“And _he_ ,” Keith pointed a finger at Lance, “hit me with it. If it’s broken it’s his fault.”

“You’re worried about the toaster?” Lance’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “I could’ve lost an arm because of you!” He held out his left arm for everyone to inspect. There was a faint, pinkish impression of teeth on the side of his palm. On the other hand, it could have been anything, really; a mosquito bite, for example. Certainly not anything that would cause the sudden loss of a limb.

“Lance,” Shiro tried to placate. “It’s not so bad. I’m sure Coran has something to fix it.” _What_ Coran was supposed to fix Shiro didn’t know, but it seemed like a good idea to give Lance the prospect of yelling at someone else.

“Are you kidding me?” Lance waved his hand in Shiro’s face. “I could have rabies!”

“Are you calling me a dog?” Keith snarled.

“I’m calling you a danger to society.”

Keith’s face went from barely impressed to ‘I will rip your throat out with my bare hands’ - which he promptly attempted. Pidge made a valiant effort to jump in between but Shiro pulled her out before she could get squished in the middle. The fight continued with Lance doing everything he could to tear all of Keith’s hair out and Keith, in return, trying to knee Lance in whatever body part would hurt the most.

Shiro was out of ideas. He slumped down on one of the crates Pidge had put together as a workbench and helplessly watched Lance and Keith roll across the hangar floor. Pidge sat down next to him, cradling the neuron-collector-slash-toaster in her arms like a hurt puppy.

“You know, I think they like each other,” Pidge said all of a sudden.

Shiro had a bit of trouble following that u-turn. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said they like each other,” Pidge reiterated, nodding towards the humanoid bundle of hands and feet that was tumbling past them.

Shiro blinked in confusion. “He’s trying to bite Keith’s ear off. I fail to see how that implies…” Shiro wiggled his hands vaguely. “Affection.”

Pidge’s gaze followed the two squabblers. She cocked her head to the side. “Doesn’t look like biting to me.”

Shiro squinted at his teammates, but all he could see were Keith’s fists tearing at Lance’s jacket and Lance’s head buried in Keith’s hair. Shiro had been in enough fights to know that when it came down to survival it rarely looked graceful, but what these two were doing didn’t resemble anything he’d ever seen in a fist fight. It didn’t seem particularly affectionate either. Shiro had no idea where Pidge was getting her information from.

“But they’re fighting,” Shiro said as a last-resort effort to explain the situation.

Pidge merely shrugged and got up. “I guess that’s part of the coping mechanism.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and headed for the door, leaving Shiro to wonder which psychology class should have covered that.

\---

Keith was missing. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Lance was off comms, probably heading towards certain doom.

“Lance!” Shiro hissed so as not to alert the drones a few paces away. “Lance! Do you copy?” No answer. Shiro balled his hands into fists in an attempt to keep calm. Lance’s and Keith’s antics as of late were beginning to take a toll on his nerves. When he saw the worried looks Hunk and Pidge were giving him he forced himself to relax. “It’s fine,” Shiro assured everyone. “I’m fine. They’re fine.”

“You sure?” Pidge peered at him over the rim of her glasses. “This is Lance we’re talking about.” Hunk just nodded emphatically.

Shiro heaved a sigh. “All right. You two go get the location of the prison ships from the bridge. I’ll go after Lance. Once you’re done get back to the ship. Don’t come looking for us. Clear?”

“Copy that.” Pidge saluted and dragged Hunk off towards the command center of the Galra ship. Pidge was smart and careful. Hunk was… possibly even more so, but in the same way a block of concrete was cautious. Shiro didn’t worry about them. Lance and Keith, on the other hand, were like lemmings gravitating towards the epicenter of danger. Most of the time they _were_ the epicenter.

Shiro pinpointed Lance’s last known location and worked his way from there. He figured since Lance had basically dropped everything the minute Keith had stopped responding to their calls it was likely that Lance had followed Keith to the engine room. _Against order_ , of course, because otherwise everything would be going smoothly and Shiro wouldn’t be hurrying through the corridors of an enemy ship looking for his pilots like two escaped chickens from the yard. Keith had been tasked to disable the ship’s thrusters, so they were either in the engine room or not far from it. In any case, it wasn’t hard to find since all the guards were running in the same direction.

Shiro ducked behind the door and peered around the corner. The massive room that housed the ship’s engine had several entrances but the two gates on the other side were sealed shut. Shiro could see smoke rising from the control panels on the wall. Someone had disabled them with a cannon blast. Most likely Lance. He was huddled behind a few upturned crates. Shiro could just about make out Lance’s helmet, and two feet clad in red and white boots. That was worrying.

Shiro quickly scanned the room. The fastest way to Lance and Keith was right through the middle, which was also full of Galra foot soldiers. Lance was firing intermittently but he seemed distracted, not hitting a single thing. Shiro wondered if he was aiming at all. This was not only unusual for Lance but it also made it risky to come out guns blazing. Lance might hit him by accident.

The roundabout way was to try and climb over the enormous engine blocks. Two of the four engines had already stopped humming; the purple strings of lightning that connected them to the ship’s power source had disappeared. Shiro clenched his jaw and activated his arm. Keith had already done half the work so Shiro might as well finish the job. He hid behind the nearest engine block and waited for Lance to draw the guards’ fire again. He didn’t have to wait long - even though Lance’s aim wasn’t improving.

Shiro leapt onto the engine, getting as much traction as possible to make the jump onto the next. It didn’t go quite unnoticed, but he managed to cut deep into the metal shielding. Heavy fire followed him as he made his way to the next target. The engine he’d just sliced open exploded in a blinding ball of purple energy, spraying the room with debris and lashes of warped quintessence. Shiro yelled for Lance and Keith to take cover. He hoped they’d heard him. Shiro barely managed to get behind one of the disabled engines before distorted pieces of metal shielding started burying themselves into the walls around him. The blast pushed everything towards the walls, including Zarkon’s soldiers. Some of them weren’t going to get up any time soon.

That left one engine to take care of. Shiro hacked and sliced his way through the guards that were brave and steady enough on their feet to try to stop him. He landed on top of the last engine and straight-up pushed his enhanced arm through the metal and grabbed whatever wiring he could find. He tore out wires until sparks signalled the imminent departure of the engine into the mechanical afterlife. Shiro quickly slid down the side of the engine block and ran to Lance’s position. Seconds later the engine followed its predecessors in a deafening blast. It took the majority of the present enemy forces with it. The stack of crates Lance and Keith had taken cover behind provided some measure of safety from the explosion, but riddled with debris as the containers were they weren’t going to stand a chance against a direct hit from a Galra cannon.

Smoke and the smell of burning wire was filling the room when Shiro slid to a halt next to Lance who was cradling Keith’s head in his lap. “He won’t wake up!” Lance yelled, probably a little deaf from the explosions. “I- I don’t know what to do! He won’t-” He broke off and Shiro found himself faced with a whole different set of problems.

“Lance, are- are you crying?” Shiro tried to get a look at Lance’s face.

“No! I’m not crying. Why would I be crying? That’s ridiculous,” Lance rambled at top volume, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Shiro put his hand on Lance’s shoulder and checked Keith’s pulse. “Calm down, Lance. He’s still breathing.” He carefully lifted Keith’s head and felt for any irregularities in his helmet. “There’s a dent in his helmet,” Shiro ascertained. “He just got knocked out. He’ll be fine.”

“I knew that.” Lance said with the confidence of a six-year-old who didn’t want to seem disappointed that Santa wasn’t real.

Shiro did himself a favor and refrained from commenting. Instead he peered over the stack of crates to check how much more trouble he had invited with his flashy entrance. There were only half a dozen guards still standing and they seemed unsure of what to do. The engines were still giving off bursts of energy every now and then. Shiro crouched back down and pointed at Keith. “Can you wake him up? We need him conscious and on his feet if we want to get out of here.”

Lance looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Shiro took another peek over the edge. “I’ll hold them off and as soon as Keith’s back on his feet we-” He stopped when he heard a thumping noise. Confused, he turned around just in time to witness Lance repeatedly hitting Keith in the chest with his fist, yelling, “Wake up, you dumb nutsack!”

“Lance!” Shiro gasped. He caught Lance’s fist in mid-air. “What are you doing?”

“Waking him up?” It sounded like Lance thought it should have been obvious.

Shiro shoved Lance’s hand away. “You’re breaking his ribs! He’s not having a heart attack, for Quiznak’s sake. Just- I don’t know, shake him a little or something.”

Lance made a miffed face. “Sure, captain medical degree.”

Shiro took a deep, calming breath. “Just do it. Please.”

Lance continued to mutter something, but Shiro ignored it in favor of keeping an eye on the approaching enemy forces - which had doubled in the time it had taken to keep Lance from actually killing Keith with his special form of CPR.

“Oh thank God.” Shiro heard Lance gasp behind him and turned around to find Keith slowly blinking his eyes open.

“You had us all worried, man,” Lance admonished as soon as he had Keith’s full attention. Shiro felt that calling Lance’s reaction ‘worried’ was an understatement.

Keith shakily managed to sit up against the crates, clutching his head. “What’re you doing here?”

Lance blinked. “Excuse you? I came to rescue your sorry little ass.”

“Really?” Keith pointed at Shiro. ”Then what’s he doing here?”

“Rescuing you both,” Shiro interrupted before this could evolve into one of their trademark arguments. “Keith, how’re you feeling?”

“Bit dizzy. What happened?”

Shiro looked at Lance, who could only shrug. “We don’t know,” Shiro concluded. “You got knocked out when something hit your helmet.” He held up two fingers. “How many fingers?”

Keith squinted. “Five.”

Shiro glanced at his hand, then at Lance. Well, it wasn’t _wrong_. “Good enough,” he decided and hauled Keith onto his feet. In the meantime someone had apparently called in reinforcements. The room was filling up with foot soldiers. The unpredictable energy blasts were giving them trouble but didn’t quite stop their advance.

“Can you walk?” Shiro asked.

Keith hesitated but then nodded. “I think so. My ribs hurt, but I’ll manage.”

“Walk?” Lance yelped. He pointed a shaky finger at the white-hot spot that had appeared in the gate behind them. “You mean _run_!”

They were up and gone moments before the gate exploded into the engine room. Shiro evaded to the left while Lance and Keith sped off to the right. Lance’s blaster manifested the second Shiro meant to yell for covering fire. Finally, Lance’s instincts seemed to be back on track. His aim was, too. He picked the enemy fighters off one by one faster than Shiro could count. Keith was still a bit unsteady but his blade was doing considerable damage to their opponents as well. Shiro’s chest tightened a little when he saw his teammates fighting side by side and completely turning the tables on their enemy.

Granted, Shiro could have foregone the proud team lead feelings in favor of doing a better job of dodging. He almost got his head blasted off his shoulders by a drone. The culprit didn’t last long though. Shiro’s arm went straight through its mechanical innards.

Somehow the three of them managed to reach the opposite gate with only a handful of soldiers left on their trail. “Landing bay! Landing bay!” Shiro shouted and pointed frantically before Keith and Lance could take a wrong turn.

They had arrived in a stolen Galra fighter since this was supposed to be a covert operation. Shiro was going to get an earful from Allura about their immensely different understandings of the word ‘covert’. All they could do for now was hope that the Galra hadn’t noticed the surplus in fighters in their hangar.

Shiro skidded around the corner first. The entrance to the landing bay was only guarded by a handful of soldiers, two of which Shiro took out easily. Lance came tottering through the gate with Keith hanging onto him. Shiro shot them a questioning look. Keith gave him a thumbs up, but it wasn’t very convincing. With Keith requiring more assistance than anticipated, Shiro couldn’t rely on Lance to shoot their way towards the stolen fighter.

Half a dozen soldiers were forming a line and taking aim right in front of them. Short of jumping over the railing, Shiro saw no way to get out of this unharmed. He briefly considered just throwing himself and his teammates over the railing and hope for the best when a Galra fighter came into view behind the line of enemy soldiers. They got mowed down in the blink of an eye.

“Yesss!” Lance cheered, almost throwing Keith to the ground. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

The loading hatch opened and Pidge appeared in the small opening. She ushered them inside while the fighter was hovering just above the railing. Hunk was getting much better at flying precise manoeuvers. Shiro’s training lessons were paying off.

“What happened?” Pidge gasped when they heaved Keith inside. He was barely conscious at that point.

Shiro tapped Hunk on the shoulder to signal that they were all on board. He was expecting Lance to launch into a rant about how stupid and clumsy he thought Keith was but to Shiro’s surprise Lance kept quiet. When Shiro turned around Pidge was busy running a few basic diagnostic tests on Keith. He didn’t know what to make of Lance’s expression. Shiro had never seen him like that. The fact that Lance was squeezing Keith’s hand the whole time barely even registered.

\---

“A minor concussion and a few bruises around his ribs,” Coran ascertained as the scanner swept over Keith. “Nothing we can’t fix.”

Shiro gave Lance a pointed glare at the mention of bruised ribs. “Tomorrow, 8AM sharp,” he hissed at Lance. “You and me. CPR training.”

“But I was just trying to-”

Shiro held up his hand and walked out of the room. “I don’t wanna hear it. You almost broke his ribs.”

“It worked on Emergency Room that one time!” Lance yelled.

\---

Shiro thought he was being very generous when he waited a whole fifteen minutes for Lance to show up before storming off towards the nearest interface to check on Lance’s whereabouts. The Castle’s sensors put him in the sleeping chamber. Good; that way Shiro wouldn’t have to drag Lance’s limp body very far after the imminent asskicking.

When Shiro entered the chamber he was ready to unleash the entire force of his authority onto Lance. He didn’t though once he spotted Lance curled up on the steps leading up to Keith’s sleeping pod. It looked highly uncomfortable.

Shiro snuck closer and poked Lance in the shoulder. “Lance. Wake up.” When nothing happened he tried a little harder. And then he straight-up yelled, “Lance!”

“Not the crust!” Lance gargled as he sat up straight in an instant. He blinked up at Shiro. “Oh, hey Shiro. What’re you doing here?”

Shiro crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Remember our 8AM appointment?”

To his credit, Lance seemed to actually try to remember. “Uh… I thought you were joking.”

Shiro leaned in close. “Did it look like I was joking?”

Lance scooted backwards on the stairs and gulped. “Erm… You know, it’s sometimes hard to tell. You’re very hard to read.”

Shiro sighed. He was less angry (the comment on his apparent lack of facial cues notwithstanding) than he was intrigued. “Lance, what are you even doing here?”

Lance brushed off his clothes. Shiro noticed with concern that they were the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. Lance got up and gave a shrug. “Taking a nap,” he said.

“At 8:30 in the morning?”

“It, uh, was a long nap.”

“And you couldn’t do that in your room because…?” Shiro inquired. It didn’t escape his attention that Lance was subtly trying to get past him.

“It’s very quiet in here. Very calming. Super Zen,” Lance explained with the conviction of someone who had no idea what ‘Zen’ meant but was determined to use it to their advantage.

“And your room isn’t Zen enough?”

“It’s-,” Lance wrung his hands. “Hunk is noisy, okay? He snores.”

Shiro smiled because now Lance had dug himself a hole. Well, _another_ hole. “So, you come here every night? ‘Cause I assume Hunk didn’t just start snoring last night, did he?”

Lance’s entire face was like a car crash in slow-motion. Shiro could pinpoint the exact moment Lance realized it was too late to backpedal. “I-, uh… not _every_ night,” he stammered. “Every now and then. I mean-”

“And you sleep in your clothes?”

Lance looked down at himself as if he’d only just noticed. “Err…”

“Yeah,” Shiro nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“I should probably, you know, get changed or something.” Lance stepped around Shiro. “For our training session.”

Shiro gave another nod, never taking his eyes off Lance. “Good idea.”

Lance almost tripped over his own feet in his escape. Shiro watched him disappear into the hallway and shook his head in resignation.

“Aw, poor thing, doesn’t even realize what’s going on.”

Shiro jumped at the sound of Allura’s voice. “Geez!” He spun around to find her standing in the side entrance. “Have you considered knocking?”

She shrugged and casually walked up to him. “It’s my castle.”

Shiro considered this. “Point.” She checked a few stats on Keith’s pod when Shiro remembered something. “What exactly isn’t he aware of?”

Allura laughed. It sounded like a teacher amused by their pupils’ silly antics. “That he’s in love.”

Shiro’s gaze went from Keith to where Lance had run off to and back to Allura. “You know, you are the second person to tell me that and I’m not sure we’re talking about the same people here.”

“Some people have an odd way of showing their affection,” she said as she gracefully walked down the steps. Every time she did that Shiro had to keep himself from checking if her feet even touched the ground. That woman just _floated_. “Some people take a long time to realize their feelings,” she continued, beckoning him to follow. “Some never do. And some may need a little help.”

Shiro stopped in his tracks. “No,” he said determinedly. “Nononono. We- _I_ am not getting involved in-,” he gestured vaguely at Keith’s pod. “ _this_. Absolutely not.”

Allura poked her finger at his chest. “You are the Black Paladin, the lion’s head. You are their leader. It’s your duty to-”

He gently grasped her hand and shook his head. “No. This is something they have to figure out for themselves. Whatever _it_ is.”

“And what if they never do?” She leaned back and crossed her arms, not unlike Shiro was wont to do.

He wasn’t used to getting a dose of his own medicine so he took a small step back. “Then things will just go on as usual?” he suggested somewhat helplessly.

“You want things to go on like _this_?” Allura made a gesture that probably meant to encompass the entire universe as it was at the moment, weird, affectionate idiots and all.

Technically, if they were being honest, Keith’s and Lance’s behavior wasn’t any weirder than usual. They were still fighting all the time, they insulted each other on a daily basis, and they worked together _in a way_. It was a very dedicated, if not single-minded sort of cooperation that rained danger down onto the team like storm clouds on a summer evening, but it _was_ teamwork. Shiro didn’t see the benefit of any action on their part. What if their meddling brought to light that all these supposed feelings weren’t mutual? What then? It would be awkward, and Keith and Lance would probably never talk more than five words to each other ever again.

Now there was something to look forward to.

“Shiro,” Allura said while Shiro was still lost in his contemplations. “I’ve lived ten thousand years - granted I spent most of it asleep - but my point is: Despite living for so long I have many regrets. I failed to tell loved ones how dear they were to me and now I’ll never get the chance. Your paladins’ lives are much shorter. Do you really want them to carry the burden of inaction for the rest of their lives?”

Shiro had to hand it to Allura, that was a nice speech. And what was the worst that could happen? Eternal silence. And at best they were all going to have to live with two paladins in love. Didn’t sound so horrifying. “Okay.” Shiro gave in. “I’ll talk to them.”

Allura’s face lit up. She patted him on the back like a proud mother. “You are a true leader.”

Shiro’s shoulders sagged. “Is it too late to give the lion back?”

She smacked him over the head.

\---

Shiro decided to talk to Keith first. Keith was quieter and was least likely to start rattling off incoherent platitudes of denial. Then again, it was far more difficult to extract information from him. Either way, it didn’t really matter. Shiro thought it was ridiculous, regardless of who he talked to first. But Allura was right in at least one regard: This was a problem for the team. And his team’s problems were his problems. He had to deal with it.

As a result, Shiro strode into the pilot’s lounge as casually as his acting skills allowed and encountered Keith sitting on the couch fiddling with some gadget Pidge had built for him. It had been about two weeks since the incident on the Galra ship and it had become seemingly impossible to catch Keith on his own. Somehow Lance was always hovering close-by. Shiro checked the room twice before he struck up a conversation.

“Hey,” Shiro said as he leaned on the backrest next to Keith, pretending to study the little gimmick.

Keith barely looked up. “Oh, hey.”

Well, this was going great. Shiro had been quite sociable before he got his life turned upside down by a bunch of evil aliens. He didn’t know if there had ever been any applicable conversation starters to lead into a talk about romantic relationships with teammates, but even if there were he wouldn’t remember. So, he clung to the only thing he did know: “Good training today.” He cringed inwardly.

Keith made a noncommittal sound. “Mhm.”

This was going to be harder than Shiro had thought. He had to get the conversation going towards Lance so, he figured the best approach was a direct one. “You and Lance worked well together,” he said. It wasn’t even a lie. The two of them seemed to be of one mind lately.

Keith gave a shrug. “He’s all right. When he keeps his mouth shut.”

Shiro smiled. “He does talk a lot, doesn’t he?”

Keith merely nodded. Wow, so much for that strategy. Shiro desperately tried to think of something that would get Keith talking about Lance. “So, what do you think about Lance?” Shiro asked eventually with as much grace as a tap dancing frog on ice.

Surprisingly, Keith didn’t pick up on it. He simply cocked his head to the side, staring into the distance. “He’s a good pilot,” he stated after a moment’s thought. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Keith admitting that Lance was good at _anything_ was already unheard of but Keith acknowledging Lance’s piloting skills? The world was clearly coming to an end. Once Shiro had fought his way past his astonishment he smiled and made a gesture like zipping his mouth shut. “Won’t say a thing.”

And that was that. Keith went back to tinkering with that infernal device and left Shiro to stew in his own conversational black hole. “That’s it?” Shiro said. “ _He’s a good pilot._ Nothing more… personal you’d like to add?”

Keith finally turned around to face him properly. “Why are you asking?”

All right, maybe Shiro hadn’t anticipated that he might have to actually explain what he was doing. He needed a quick, believable answer. “Ah… Coran is compiling some data to improve the training simulations.” There. That was the absolute worst answer he could have come up with.

As expected, Keith was not convinced. “What does that have to do with what I think of Lance?”

Shiro was sweating. He knew he was sweating. He could feel it pooling in the small of his back. He was digging his fingers in so hard his mechanical hand nearly mauled the couch. “The emotional bond is very important,” Shiro managed. He was surprised to get it out in one go.

“Huh,” said Keith. He turned back around and tossed Pidge’s gadget between his hands. “I guess he’s okay. We get along well as long as he doesn’t talk too much. Sometimes his jokes are kinda funny though. But I don’t want to encourage him. His ego’s bloated as it is. And like I said, he’s a decent pilot. And I guess he’s a pretty good shot, too.”

That had to be the longest string of sentences Shiro had ever heard Keith say on the topic of Lance. Yet it still lacked one essential piece of information like _’I am head over heels for him and I would appreciate your help with getting into his pants.’_.

“Anything else?” Shiro asked, hopeful. Keith appeared thoughtful for a moment but then shook his head. “Uh,” Shiro remarked quite eloquently. He didn’t know how to discreetly remove himself from this clusterfuck. “All right. I’m glad we, uh, had this talk. Good talk.”

Keith hummed in agreement while Shiro buried his face in his hands. It was a good thing Keith couldn’t see him right now. He concluded that he might have better luck with Lance after all.

\---

Shiro caught Lance in the kitchen, leaning on the kitchen counter eating something green, crispy, and vaguely dorito-shaped. It was hard to tell what it was since everything edible the kitchen robots produced appeared to be green.

“Hey Lance,” Shiro waved. “You got a minute?”

Lance continued to munch on his space crackers but nodded. “Sure. What’s up?”

Shiro braced himself for the upcoming shitstorm. If his experience with Keith had taught him anything it was that taking the scenic route wasn’t working. He needed to get to the point quickly. The element of surprise might cause Lance to reveal something. So, Shiro leaned his arms on the counter just opposite of Lance and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure how to say this but there’s something I have to talk to you about.” Shiro looked up to confirm that he had Lance’s undivided attention. Lance’s face was slowly turning from arguably attentive to _’I dread the worst’_. Shiro went on, “So, you and Keith-”

Lance started wheezing and sputtering green crisps all over the counter. “No!” He waved his arms around as if he had to fight off a bunch of angry bees. “No! Absolutely not. No way, José. Uh-uh.” Lance shook his head fervently and clutched the bowl of doritos to his chest. “Not in a million years. Don’t even start.” And with that he took his bowl and backed out of the room, almost bumping into Allura who had probably come to see if Shiro had made any progress.

Shiro stood by the counter, lost. “What just happened?”

“I think you need help,” Allura said as she was staring at Lance’s retreating back.

Shiro turned around to face her. “ _I’m_ the one who needs help?” he said, eyes wide.

She gently took his hand and led him out of the kitchen. “You tried to be subtle, which is commendable, but these two are strangers to subtlety, I’m afraid. Some drastic measures are in order.”

“Oh no.”

\---

“What are _they_ doing here?” Shiro pointed at Pidge, Coran, and Hunk who had assembled in the dining hall. The mice were present as well.

Allura smiled. “They want to help.”

“Help with _what_?” Shiro gestured vaguely.

“To elevate Keith’s and Lance’s relationship to the next level, of course,” Coran said.

“What next level?” Shiro waved a hand in the general direction of the living quarters. “I can’t even tell what level they’re at. Besides the ‘I want to punch you in the face’ level.”

“They’re clearly in denial of their feelings,” Pidge said matter-of-factly.

Shiro sank back in his chair. “Clearly.”

“We need them to realize their feelings for each other before this goes critical,” Pidge elaborated. She made it sound like they were trying to defuse a bomb. Not entirely wrong, probably.

“Listen, guys,” Shiro placated. “Can’t we just let them work it out on their own? We’re meddling in affairs we know nothing about.”

Pidge gave him a look like an exasperated referee. “This is Lance and Keith we’re talking about. They wouldn’t be able to work it out if you painted them a picture.”

Shiro grimaced. “All right, all right. Assuming we’re right about this… what’s the plan?”

Silent contemplation followed. Secretly, Shiro hoped no one would have any ideas.

“We could always stage an incident,” Hunk mused. Everyone stared at him blankly.

Shiro narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What kind of incident?”

Hunk gave half a shrug as if he expected everyone else to fill in the blanks. “You know, an incident… Where they have to rely on each other and recognize each other’s worth. That sort of thing.”

“Something where one has to save the other!” Coran exclaimed, entirely too enthusiastic for Shiro’s taste.

“Mortal danger,” Pidge mumbled. “I like it.”

Shiro held up his hands. “Hold on a second. Are you telling me you want to risk this crew, this ship, and the safety of the universe just so Keith and Lance can have a _moment_?”

Allura waved it off. “Don’t be silly. We’ll have full control over the environment at all times.”

Everyone nodded in agreement - all except for Shiro who could do nothing but stare at his teammates in utter disbelief. “Who _are_ you people?”

\---

“Tell me again, why am I agreeing to this?” Shiro rubbed his temples while Pidge explained in excruciating detail how she had successfully rendered the ship inert.

“Because if I have to have one more conversation about Keith’s hair, I’m going to take my lion and empty the fuel hatch over everything Lance loves,” Hunk said. Shiro believed him.

“Fine.” Shiro gave up. “Pidge, how are we looking?”

Pidge wore the proudest grin when she elaborated on her alterations to the ship’s core functions. “I’ve programmed the sensors to pick up no other life signs beside Lance and Keith. We trigger a mock alarm so that they get into their lions, which gives us time to prepare a few surprises. When they come back they’ll think they’re alone and they’ll have to figure it out from there.”

Shiro didn’t share Pidge’s confidence in this plan. “What kind of surprises?”

“Holograms of Galra soldiers, malfunctioning control panels, you know, that sort of thing.”

Shiro gaped at her. “Pidge, we want them to have a moment, not traumatize them for life.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiled brightly. “It’s all fake and we can stop the simulation at any time.”

In his desperation, Shiro turned to Allura. Surely, she had to have second thoughts about potentially compromising her castle. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

To Shiro’s horror Allura nodded. “For the sake of the team I think we should move forward.”

“All right,” Pidge said merrily, her finger hovering over a disproportionately large ‘Start’ button on her tablet. “Here goes nothing.” She pressed the button and everything went dark. The only source of light was Pidge’s tablet which illuminated her ever more concerned expression quite nicely.

“Pidge, did you break the ship?” Shiro asked as politely as his nerves permitted.

“I’m not sure…,” she said, which was _not_ the answer Shiro had been hoping for. Her fingers flew over the tablet at record-breaking speed, bringing up panel after panel full of Altean code. Allura was peering over Pidge’s shoulder. She was so close Shiro could sense her rapidly dwindling faith in her decision.

“There it is!” Pidge exclaimed. She pressed the button again and all of a sudden the bridge was filled with blinking alarm lights and deafening sirens.

“Is it always this loud?” Shiro yelled over the noise - and because everyone was covering their ears.

Allura shook her head, her expression vaguely panicked. “Hang on a second!” Pidge screamed as she made some adjustments on her tablet. The sirens died down a moment later, only the blinking lights remained. The sudden silence hit Shiro like a hammer. It took them a moment to tune their vocal chords back to normal speaking volume.

“Well,” Pidge said, a little uncertain. “At least we know the speaker system works.”

“Thank you, Pidge.” Allura managed to make it sound sincere. She pointed at the tablet in Pidge’s hand. “Did it work?”

Pidge brought up several instances of video surveillance feeds in search of Lance and Keith. “There they are,” Pidge said and magnified the video. It did indeed show Lance and Keith halfway into their Paladin suits. Shiro squinted at the screen. “Wait, is Keith wearing Lance’s shirt?”

Neither of them had had time to pack a suitcase back when they were tossed into this mess so every piece of clothing they owned had been acquired during their journey and was uncannily familiar to everyone on the team. Surprisingly, t-shirts didn’t grow on trees in outer space. Shiro was sure he’d just seen Lance’s home-made ‘Ask me about my lion’ shirt on Keith.The others took a closer look but Keith was already zipping up his suit. Pidge shook her head. “I didn’t see anything.”

Shiro frowned. Maybe he was wrong. His perception wasn’t as reliable as it used to be. He’d noticed that ever since he’d escaped his captors his mind tended to create more gaps than it filled in. Either way, it was just a shirt. Keith might have just grabbed the wrong one from the laundry basket. He’d seen how Lance did the laundry - it was like a Jackson Pollock painting but with clothing. You never knew where your stuff was going to end up. Or what colour it was going to be.

Shiro tried to push the thought from his mind and instead followed the ongoings. He watched his teammates get into their lions and zoom out into the darkness of space. Pidge switched on the comms so they could hear what Keith and Lance were talking about. Obviously, there was a lot of confusion about the lack of other lions.

_”Where the heck is everybody?”_ Lance said.

_”I can’t reach any of them,”_ Keith replied. Shiro was beginning to feel sorry for them. He’d learned the hard way that space was a scary place full of monsters who would rather bite your head off than shake your hand. If they _had_ hands at all. So, being out there expecting to have backup and then finding that you were alone was… not a good headspace to get into.

While Keith and Lance were frantically trying to find them, Pidge sent everyone off to make preparations for later. She beckoned Shiro to follow her, always keeping an eye on her tablet. Shiro could hear Keith and Lance arguing, their voices sounding more and more panicked by the minute. He was pretty sure he was going to hell for this.

“All right, here we are,” Pidge announced and shoved the tablet at Shiro before popping open a control panel in the wall. She rummaged around the wiring, connecting and disconnecting seemingly random cables, while Shiro watched the screen.

His mood darkened with every second he had to listen to his comrades. “This is wrong,” he said.

Pidge paused for a moment and gave him a sympathetic look. “I know you worry a lot about us.” She gently squeezed his arm and smiled. “But you don’t have to this time. It’ll be fine.”

Shiro wasn’t convinced, but he managed a smile anyway. Pidge went back to tinkering with the wires. “At the very least,” she went on. “They might end up appreciating us a bit more after this. Let’s be real, if anyone’s always off on their own, it’s them.”

“They already do,” Shiro said determinedly as he handed the tablet back.

Pidge smiled, but there was a hint of sadness to it. “I know,” she said.

“Well,” Shiro said before this could drift into the bay of Uncomfortable Silence. “I suppose there’s no use in stopping now. We’ve put too much time and effort into this.” Pidge brightened up immediately. Shiro nodded at the tablet in her hands. “How are they doing?”

“They’re on their way back,” she replied and grimaced. “They’re not happy.”

Shiro snorted. “Would you be? We can count ourselves lucky if they don’t end up hating us more than they hate each other.”

Pidge pushed the control panel shut and they started walking back towards the bridge. “Technically, that’s exactly what we want,” she mused.

Shiro shot her a dark look. “Not helping, Pidge.”

She shrugged. “They need a common enemy.”

Shiro almost choked. “What, so the Galra aren’t enough?” He gestured at the abundance of empty space surrounding them. “Or whoever else is out there that wants to kill us.” Who was to say the Galra were the only bad guys out there? They were just the only ones team Voltron knew about at this point. Shiro shuddered at the thought.

“You know what I mean,” Pidge said testily and Shiro decided to limit her time with Allura. They were beginning to bond in ways that Shiro’s nerves were not built to withstand. “Let’s wait in here,” she announced as she made a sudden turn. Shiro didn’t think much when he stepped through the door behind her, but once his eyes had adjusted to the semi-dark he realized he should probably ask.

“Pidge? Is this a broom closet?” There was a robot stored in one corner that had scrubbers instead of wheels, and a glance at the labels of the containers stacked neatly onto the shelves revealed them to be designated for areas like ‘living quarters’ and ‘showers’. Shiro recognized Hunk’s capslock handwriting.

She looked around, suddenly sheepish. “M-maybe?”

Shiro sighed. “Let’s not tell the others about this, okay?” Especially Lance; Lance would have a field day with this.

“Agreed,” Pidge said.

“Why are we hiding in here anyway?” Shiro inquired, trying not to notice how small the room actually was.

Pidge turned the tablet so he could see. “Because Keith and Lance are on their way to the bridge.”

“What’re they saying?” Shiro gestured at the screen that showed Lance and Keith tumbling onto the bridge. Pidge cranked up the volume which brought them the auditory experience of Lance yelling, _”-the heck is everybody?”_ He sounded like he was about to go through puberty all over again.

_”Maybe they got kidnapped?”_ Keith mused while Lance checked underneath the consoles - as if you could hide five people under there.

Lance paused for a moment. _”What, so you think the Galra managed to sneak on board without anyone noticing, kidnapped everyone but the two of us, and left leaving all the lions in their hangars? No offense, but that doesn’t sound like them.”_ Shiro had to agree.

Keith merely shrugged his shoulders helplessly. _”I’m just trying to make sense of this situation, same as you. You got any better ideas, wisecracker?”_

They watched Lance pace for a few seconds before gesturing wildly. _”We need to do a sweep with the scanners.”_

_”We already did that with the lions, remember?”_ Keith grumbled. Shiro could tell his confusion was beginning to be replaced by anger.

Lance dismissed Keith’s comment and instead tugged him towards the main console. He waved his hand uncertainly at the numerous illuminated buttons. _”Maybe the lions’ sensors weren’t working correctly. Do it again with the Castle sensors.”_

Keith pressed his lips together in defiance, but eventually started to put in a sequence of commands. “I taught him how to do that,” Pidge remarked proudly.

Shiro nodded in appreciation. “Very good.” Then he added, “Don’t teach Lance any of that stuff, okay?”

She gave him a look like he’d suggested she wear her underwear on her head on Wednesdays. “I’m not suicidal, thank you.”

“Okay, good.” Shiro nodded again. Meanwhile, Keith was giving Lance the bad news.

_”There’s nothing,”_ Keith was saying, shaking his head.

Lance made a gesture like he needed to shoo away a particularly nasty bug. _”You did it wrong. Do it again.”_

_”I didn’t do anything wrong, Lance. The sensors aren’t picking anything up because there’s nothing there.”_

_”I don’t care!”_ Lance’s voice was verging on breaking. _”Do it again.”_

_”Lance!”_

_”Please,”_ Lance pleaded quietly. Shiro and Pidge exchanged a worried look.

Keith gave in and ran the scan once more - with the same result. _”There,”_ Keith said, _”Nothing.”_

_”But-”_

_”Hold on a second,”_ Keith narrowed his eyes and let the floating screen zoom in on something. _”The cargo bay hatch is open.”_

Shiro gave Pidge an inquisitive look. “Pidge?”

“I didn’t do that,” she replied, her fingers dancing over the tablet to find the error.

“Then who did?”

The light in the small room was faint but Shiro could see the color draining from Pidge’s face just fine. She held out the tablet. “I guess they did it.” The video feed showed a good dozen figures of various shapes and sizes in torn space suits rummaging around the cargo bay. Shiro was just about to point out something that looked like a cannon made out of _other cannons_ when the ship started going crazy. The small room was illuminated by red alarm lights going off and on while the sirens wailed outside.

Shiro’s first instinct was to run out into the corridor and head straight for the cargo bay. He threw himself against the door but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked. “What the hell’s going on, Pidge?” Shiro yelled. He could feel panic swelling in his chest. He was very much averse to small rooms with no windows and locked doors. He’d spent way too much time in one of those.

Pidge gestured wildly. “I don’t know! The ship must have switched to emergency mode.”

Shiro forced himself to focus on the problem at hand. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling sweat pooling on his temples. “Fine, okay. Emergency mode. Makes sense. But why’s the door locked?”

“All the doors are locked.” She indicated several red, blinking barriers in the ship’s schematics that she’d pulled up. “It’s a safety measure to keep intruders as far away from the bridge as possible.”

“And everyone else too, apparently,” Shiro grumbled and tried the door again. He rattled it until he thought the hinges were coming loose. They didn’t, which was highly discouraging. 10,000 years old and those damned things weren’t even rusty.

“Wait, I’m trying to-,” Pidge said but Shiro had enough.

“Too slow,” he grunted as his arm began to glow purple. He cut the door in half before Pidge could voice her objections. All she could do was hide behind her tablet.

“Wow,” she said as she stepped over the debris. “Allura is not gonna be happy about that.”

“Allura is doing the same to a different door right now, trust me,” Shiro panted. He was taking in huge gulps of air as if he’d been washed ashore after almost drowning. But at least they were out of the tiny room and in a-

Slightly larger room, as it turned out. “Uh-oh,” Pidge commented with a look at the massive airlock to their left. Shiro glanced over his shoulder at the gate that was blocking the way in the other direction. He sighed and walked over to the gate, waving his arms. He frowned. “Pidge, why aren’t the doors reacting? I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to let _us_ through.”

Pidge studied her shoes intently. “Remember when I said that I’d reprogrammed the Castle’s sensors to pick up no other life signs but Lance and Keith? Yeah…”

Shiro took a big, calming breath. “Are you telling me we’re trapped in here because the ship thinks we don’t exist?”

Pidge wiggled her hand. “Technically, it’s more like the ship thinks we have the same density as air, but, uh…” She stopped when she saw the look on Shiro’s face.

“Can you get it open?” Shiro asked through gritted teeth.

Pidge scratched her head, but started typing immediately. “I don’t know. These are security hatches. They’re much sturdier and meant to be unhackable. I can give it a shot, but…,” her voice trailed off while she showed Shiro the ongoings on the screen. The band of intruders was positioning the mother of all cannons right in front of the cargo bay doors. The door looked strong enough, but that cannon had a distinctly unimpressed air about it.

Shiro eyed the gate again. “I could try cutting through-”

Pidge shook her head. “Bad idea. You’ll get shocked before you can even get close.”

Shiro’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “I thought the ship didn’t recognize us?”

Pidge pointed at Shiro’s arm. “It does react to weapons though.”

Shiro groaned in defeat. “Okay, call the others. We need to get-,” he noticed Pidge’s expression. “What?”

“None of the others are wearing their earpieces.” Pidge worried her lower lip. “Except for-”

“Lance and Keith,” Shiro concluded. He needed to sit down. At this point he didn’t much care if Lance and Keith liked each other, punched each other on the nose, or adopted a space slug. He slumped down by the wall with Pidge sitting down beside him. “All right,” he decided after a while. “Hail them. But be nice.”

Pidge nodded obediently and opened a channel. “Hey guys,” she said, a tad uncertainly. A cacophony of noise greeted them as both Lance and Keith started yelling over each other in relief.

_”-the hell have you guys been? What’s going on? Is everyone okay? Where are you guys?”_ Lance asked with barely a pause in between questions.

Shiro tugged the tablet closer. “Listen, I don’t have time to explain right now. You need to get to the cargo bay and stop the intruders. They’re about to blast their way through the cargo bay doors.”

_”We’re all the way up on the bridge. Aren’t you much closer?”_ Keith asked. Shiro gave Pidge a sideways glance. She pointedly stared at the tablet, clutching it tightly. “We, uh,” she said, “it’s difficult to explain. But we’re locked in so you’ll have to go.”

_”What? Why are you locked- Where the Quiznak are you?”_ That was Lance, who, for once, was asking the right questions.

Pidge heaved a sigh. “We’re in a corridor on deck fifteen, but the safety hatches are closed and we can’t get out.”

They watched Keith walk over to the door, which opened obediently for him. _”What’s the problem? They’re working just fine up here.”_

Shiro indicated to Pidge that he was just doing a guest appearance in this shitshow and if Pidge wanted out she would have to come up with her own exit strategy. She made a miffed face but answered anyway. “The sensors are… malfunctioning.” Shiro put his face in his hands and shook his head.

_”Okay, no problem,”_ Keith replied. _”We’ll come and get you.”_

“No!” Shiro interjected. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll figure something out. Your priority is to stop the intruders.”

_”But we can’t just-”_

“No,” Shiro said decisively. “Get down there _now_. We’ll be with you as soon as we figure out a way out of here.”

_”All right, you got it,”_ Lance said and grabbed Keith’s arm in order to tug him away from the main console.

Keith struggled. _”No, we need to-”_

_”Keith?”_ Lance squished Keith’s face between his hands until he looked like a balloon with lips. _”Shut up.”_ Then he took Keith’s hand and dragged him out of view.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pidge asked as she scrambled up from the floor.

Shiro gave a nonchalant shrug and joined her. “What choice do we have?”

Pidge wasn’t convinced, but she seemed to agree that this was the only course of action until they found a way around those doors. And the next. And the next. Shiro suspected there to be a great many doors between here and the cargo bay. This was going to take a while.

\---

It turned out that Rover was very good at fitting through small openings. Also, the doors didn’t zap it into oblivion when it approached. It still took ages until they finally arrived in the cargo bay - which they found in shambles but otherwise empty.

The door had been blasted open and the walls of the hallway were marred with the markings of a firefight, interrupted by long gashes that could only have been left by Keith’s sword. Thankfully, a quick sweep of the cargo bay turned up no bodies. Shiro breathed a little easier..

Pidge cocked her head to the side. “You hear that?” Shiro listened closely and, no mistake, there were faint thumping noises like laser blasts hitting hard surfaces. That was reassuring because laser blasts hitting _soft_ surfaces was a sound Shiro never wanted to hear again.

“It’s coming from the hangars!” Pidge yelled and sprinted out into the hallway. Shiro followed suit, his arm already tingling as if it knew that a fight was imminent. It always made him acutely aware that he wasn’t 100% Shiro anymore, and who knew _what_ the hell that arm was. Shiro had gotten used to the sight and feel of it, but he still didn’t exactly trust it. But sometimes it did come in handy. They hadn’t had time to get their suits so between the two of them Shiro was the only one with offensive power. He had no guarantee that the rest of the team had made it down here.

Shiro slid to a halt behind Pidge. They peered around the corner at a condensed battleground. A group of intruders was blocking the hallway just a few meters up ahead, firing at something further down the corridor. Judging by the insults and cocky remarks Lance and Keith were doing okay, but they were pretty much backed into a corner. Shiro quickly counted the enemy forces: six were returning fire while one resupplied everyone with ammunition. Two intruders were propped up against the wall, unconscious, while another three were nursing nasty wounds in various extremities. That was quite a force for something that looked like a scavenger operation. They’d encountered a few over time, some friendlier than others. These were definitely aiming for the top spot on the naughty list. But they weren’t Galra, as far as Shiro could tell, and that was always a relief.

“What do we do?” Pidge whispered. Shiro considered their options. He could go in and tear the makeshift blockade apart with his bare hands. Literally. But he hated using deadly force against anyone but Galra robots. He’d seen too many beings forced to do horrible things in the name of the Galra (hell, he’d _been_ one of those people) that he automatically assumed everyone had a good reason and wasn’t necessarily evil at heart. These scavengers were only trying to make a living. They probably hadn’t counted on stumbling upon a crew that was armed to the teeth. What Shiro needed was a distraction so he could incapacitate as many opponents as possible before they caught on. He glanced at Rover hovering by Pidge’s shoulder. Maybe Rover could-

The panels above them creaked ominously. Someone cursed and then a small gasp indicated that something was about to go horribly wrong. The ceiling opened up, showering not only Shiro and Pidge but also the intruders with wiring and debris. Hunk landed square on top of a scavenger, effectively taking him out by sheer force of gravity and midnight snacks; Coran got tangled in a bunch of wires and accidentally kicked someone in the face. Allura tumbled out of the the ceiling last, managing to look incredibly graceful despite trying to stop her fall by grabbing a fistful of scavenger clothing. She tore the scavenger down to the ground, quickly adjusting to the situation and kneeing him in a spot that Shiro could only guess was the alien equivalent of a groin.

Shiro took his chance. He darted forward, arm brimming with Galran energy, and sliced the scavengers’ cannon in half before they could think of using it again. Rover zoomed over his head and landed a sharp edge in someone’s eye - one eye. Too bad the guy had five others left. The scavenger started chasing Rover but met his demise in the form of Pidge’s foot. He tripped and skidded face-first over the floor before the wall abruptly stopped his slip-n-slide. Pidge grinned proudly when Shiro gave her a thumbs up.

Meanwhile, Lance and Keith had advanced, weapons at the ready. Together they were backing the last remaining scavengers into a small huddle in the middle of the hallway.

“Put your weapons down,” Shiro warned. “We won’t harm you.”

“Unless you make us,” Lance added with a smirk. As if in agreement, his blaster rifle made a whirring noise like a generator charging up to an explosion. It ended with a deadly _click_.

“No more blood.” Allura stepped between them, eyeing the scavengers. “We can resolve this without further violence. Wouldn’t you agree?” She held out her hand to what everyone apparently assumed was the scavengers’ captain. He was a bulky creature with more legs than hands and a strong tail sticking out from underneath his torn coat. It might not be a ‘he’ at all, but the human language was limited when it came to alien anatomy.

The captain pulled down the cloth that had been hiding most of his face until now, which revealed a face with a broad nose and tiny tentacles like a beard. Scars were crisscrossing his cheeks like ley lines on a map. Shiro resisted the urge to touch his own scar. Instead he nodded affirmatively when the captain gave him an inquisitive look. Eventually, the scavenger shook Allura’s hand. He had only four fingers by design but the fourth one was merely a stump.

“My name is Allura, princess of Altea,” she introduced herself. The diplomat’s smile was back on her face. “I’m so sorry about your men. Of course we’ll take care of your wounded, if you let us.”

“Q’Intek. I captain this crew,” the scavenger replied, pointing at his crewmates. His voice was deep and made little clicking noises at the hard consonants. “My apologies. We were merely defending ourselves. We thought this ship had been abandoned. Otherwise we never would have boarded.”

Lance’s weapon disappeared when he stepped forward, wearing a frown. “Uh, yeah, about that…”

Shiro sighed.

\---

A few hours in the sleep chambers took care of the injured scavengers. Pidge raked together a few discarded pieces of equipment that they handed over to the scavengers as a sign of good will. In return, captain Q’Intek gave them the schematics of their cannon. Shiro could already picture Pidge mounting it to one of the lions as an explosive gimmick.

“Guys?” Lance asked once the scavenger ship had departed. “Anyone feel like explaining what the everloving fuck just happened?” Keith stood next to him, nodding in silent agreement.

“Which part?” Pidge asked innocently.

Lance waved his arms angrily. “The part where we thought you guys were _dead_ or kidnapped or worse and then had to fight a bunch of space hobos!”

Everyone scrambled for an answer, but no one wanted to step forward. So Shiro did. “It was our fault,” he explained. “We thought you two had feelings for each other but were too-,” he searched for a word that wouldn’t offend Lance’s delicate sensibilities. “-preoccupied to realize them. So, we devised a plan to help.”

“We disabled the ship’s sensors so you’d think you two were the only ones left,” Pidge added, now that the cat was out of the bag.

Allura smiled gently. “Our hope was that if you two were in a situation where you had to depend solely on each other you would come to appreciate each other’s worth.”

They waited for Lance to answer, but all he did was blink at them like a sloth after dinner. The furrow in Keith’s brow was getting deeper the longer the silence lasted. “Wait,” Lance said eventually. “You’re telling me that you risked everyone’s safety because you thought Keith and I were _in love_?”

“Well…,” Shiro said, but he didn’t know how to disagree. Lance was right and it was just as ridiculous as it sounded.

“Well, that was stupid,” Lance concluded.

“And dangerous to boot,” Keith added.

“And a little late,” Lance said with a small shrug.

Shiro wasn’t sure what that meant. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re late to the party, my friend.” Lance casually rested his arm on Keith’s shoulder. To Shiro’s immense surprise Keith didn’t punch him in the stomach for it. “We’re already together.”

Shiro had to take a few precautionary breaths. He turned away while the others stared in various stages of disbelief. “So… you’re…,” Pidge made a few gestures that no one was really sure about.

“We’re BLs. Boyfriends. Lovers,” Lance said, rolling the ‘L’ with gusto. The lack of protest from Keith was compelling evidence that this was actually true.

Shiro finally calmed down enough to face his team without either laughing hysterically or punching something. “So,” he began slowly. “We did all this for nothing?”

Lance seemed to think about that for a moment, then he said, “Kind of, yeah.”

Shiro glanced over the others and made sure to give each one a scrutinizing glare. He didn’t know Alteans could blush, but Allura did. Coran was twirling his mustache like it was going to be the last thing he ever did. Hunk had his face permanently buried in his hands.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Pidge blurted out.

Keith shrugged. “We honestly thought you guys had figured it out. Shiro even came to ask me about Lance so I assumed you all knew. Why else would you ask me stuff like that?”

Shiro pointed avidly at Lance. “I asked him about you and he just said _’No’_!”

“Hey!” Lance took a step backwards, raising his hands defensively. “I thought you were gonna give me the sex talk or something. And, Shiro, I respect you, but that’s a conversation I don’t want with any of you.”

Shiro was wheezing, partly from incredulity, and partly from barely restrained anger. “What?”

“We’ve kind of passed that point so I really didn’t see the need to expose myself to that.” Lance made a face like Shiro wanted him to draw pictures.

“I wasn’t-,” Shiro broke off, rubbing his temples. “Never mind. A hint would have been nice though.”

Lance raised his eyebrows. “What’d you want me to say? _’Hi guys, just for the record, I’ve plowed that ass’_? _Ow!_ ” He tried to duck away from Keith’s punches.

“He didn’t,” Keith said.

Lance pretended to give in, but put his hand up and mouthed _’I so did.’_.

This was all too much for Shiro. Too much information, not enough information, assumptions, bad decisions, and above all complete lack of authority on his part. He could have prevented all of this if he’d just had the balls to _ask_.

“Fine,” Shiro decided. “For the future, if anyone develops any feelings for anyone else please, for the love of everyone’s sanity, just say so. We’re all in this together and we’re all we’ve got at this point so we should be able to talk about things like this. Agreed?” This received semi-enthusiastic approval from everyone but Pidge. Instead of nodding she just put her hand up and went, “Uhm, on that note…”

Shiro squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh god.”


End file.
